Wednesday, February 08, 2023

Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Biden has given into ‘woke mob’ in hardcore culture war speech

State of the Union GOP Response


Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused President Joe Biden of being a slave to a “woke mob” in the Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address that leaned heavily on social conservatism that has animated much of the GOP.

Ms Sanders, who won her election last year, served as former president Donald Trump’s press secretary and touched on her time in that role during her speech. But for the most part, she said Mr Biden was putting America on poor footing.

She noted how she was the youngest governor in the country while Mr Biden was the oldest president in history, a record previously held by Mr Trump.


“I’m the first woman to lead my state,” she said. “He’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.”

Republicans have frequently pilloried Democrats by asking “what is a woman,” while referencing transgender women as “biological males.”

“Whether Joe Biden believes this madness or is simply too weak to resist it, his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left,” she said.

“Every day, we are told that we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols,” she said. “All while big government colludes with Big Tech to strip away the most American thing there is—your Freedom of speech.”

Ms Huckabee, the daughter of former presidential candidate Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, touted the fact that she banned the teaching of “critical race theory” and the use of the term “Latinx,” a gender neutral term to describe people of Latin American descent that is meant to be inclusive of LGBTQ+ people.

“Americans want common sense from their leaders, but in Washington, the Biden administration is doubling down on crazy,” she said. She accused Mr Biden of wasting the accomplishments of the Trump administration.

“Despite Democrats’ trillions in reckless spending and mountains of debt, we now have the worst border crisis in American history,” she said. Similarly, she criticised Democrats for letting crime run rampant.

““And after years of Democrat attacks on law enforcement and calls to ‘defund the police, violent criminals roam free, while law-abiding families live in fear,” she said, despite the fact that Mr Biden and many other Democrats in Congress do not support defunding the police, though some cities and localities have reallocated money from policing to other services.

She also criticised the president for showing weakness on China, Ukraine and Afghanistan.

“President Biden is unwilling to defend our border, defend our skies, and defend our people. He is unfit to serve as commander in chief,” she said.

Ms Huckabee Sanders was one of two addresses that the GOP gave. Representative Juan Ciscomani, a freshman Republican of Arizona and an immigrant from Mexico, delivered the rebuttal to the State of the Union in Spanish.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders' 'Normal Or Crazy' Challenge Backfires Spectacularly

Wed, February 8, 2023 

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, and it was loaded with the expected right-wing culture-war grievances.

Sanders’ speech included attacks on LGBTQ rights, critical race theory, the “woke mob” and more.

But it also contained one line that probably didn’t get the reaction she was hoping.

“The choice is no longer between right or left,” declared Sanders, former press secretary to Donald Trump. “The choice is between normal and crazy.”

Many agreed ― just not in the way she was likely expecting as they pointed to her party’s own extremists, and in particular the wild behavior of conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) just minutes earlier during Biden’s speech:

Bing may now be better than Google – but it still won’t be more popular, experts say


Anthony Cuthbertson
Wed, 8 February 2023 

Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates presents a T-shirt as a retirement gift to Microsoft Office Assistant ‘Clippy’ at the Office XP launch, 31 May, 2001 (Getty Images)

The new AI-enabled Bing is Microsoft’s biggest ever play to take on Google, yet experts warn it is unlikely to even make a dent in the search giant’s dominance.

Microsoft said the artificial intelligence, which is based on the same technology underpinning the viral ChatGPT chatbot, will serve as an “AI copilot”. It is designed to assist people in their searches, like a souped-up version of its paperclip character Clippy that Word users may be familiar with.

“AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the largest category of all: search,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during a press event on Tuesday, having previously said that AI will soon impact “everyone, no matter their profession... for everything they do”.


It is the first tangible product to come from Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI of $10 billion – a figure 20 times greater than what Google paid to acquire OpenAI rival DeepMind.

Google’s AI division is still one of the world’s leading AI research units, yet it remains cautious about launching its powerful tools as standalone products. DeepMind boss Demis Hassabis revealed last month that its own Sparrow chatbot, which he claims can do things that ChatGPT cannot, would not be released immediately due to the potential dangers of advanced artificial intelligence.

Google’s in-house chatbot Bard, which was announced the day before Microsoft launched its OpenAI search integration, is also not being released publicly. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company would instead first be working to weave AI features into Google’s existing search tools.

SEO experts are betting that this approach will be enough to stave off Microsoft’s challenge, especially considering Google remains the default search engine for the majority of web users.

“Everyday search users won’t know [about this update], so Bing would have to pair the release of this feature with a huge investment in marketing to let people know. Even if Microsoft did this, would people leave the comfort of Chrome for slightly more convenient answers? Bing won’t have the time needed to ‘steal’ market share from Google, as the playing field will soon be even again,” said Collum McCormick, an SEO expert at Embryo.

“At the end of the day, it will take ‘effort’ to transition from Chrome to Microsoft Edge, which means most people wouldn’t switch unless the benefit was huge. Google has obviously been threatened by this, hence the retaliation, but now I feel like the change that Microsoft Edge will make just won’t be big enough to make people switch.”

Google’s market dominance is so complete that the company’s name has become a synonym for search, however it faces other existential threats to its near-monopoly status beyond just artificial intelligence.

Antitrust laws mean Apple and other smartphone makers may soon need to drop Google as the default search engine from Safari and Chrome browsers – Google is currently dealing with lawsuits in both the US and Europe. This would open the door for a competitor with better functionality to make a serious challenge.

This could well be an AI version of Microsoft’s Bing or Edge. The OpenAI investment could well prove useful across other Microsoft businesses that most people do not see.

“It’s no surprise that the two largest software companies in the world are racing to develop and release their own generative AI solutions. We’re witnessing the fastest industrial revolution in history,” said Rodrigo Liang, CEO of AI startup SambaNova Systems.

“While Google and Microsoft have their eyes on the consumer market, and especially search, we mustn’t forget the enterprise software market which is ripe for transformation... Foundation models based on generative AI will revolutionise these businesses.”

Web search as you know it is dead: Microsoft's and Google's new AIs are about to transform how you look for information online


Beatrice Nolan,James Dean
Wed, February 8, 2023

Microsoft's and Google's new AI-boosted search engines give conversational answers to complex questions.Crystal Cox/BI Photo

AI-boosted search engines from Microsoft and Google are set to change the way we search the web.

New versions of Google Search and Bing are meant to give conversational answers to complex queries.

It's "more like just asking a personal assistant to do something," an AI expert told Insider.

When you search for something on the web today, you'll likely be met with a long list of links. And despite a few tweaks — like Google's "people also ask" box, which attempts to answer questions related to a search query — the user experience has been fundamentally the same for years.

New artificial intelligence developed by Microsoft and Google is about to fundamentally change how we go about looking for information on the web. Make no mistake: This is a big deal.

In a blog post Monday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai laid out his company's plans to bring its new AI tech, such as its Language Model for Dialogue Applications, or LaMDA, to Google Search. On Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled his company's new AI-boosted version of its Bing search engine, powered by OpenAI's AI chatbot ChatGPT and its GPT-3.5 technology.

New Bing and new Google offer conversational answers to complex questions. The lists of links will still be there, but they may soon be redundant. Google's and Microsoft's upgraded search engines aim to get to the crux of the information people really want when searching the web, allowing users to ask natural questions in their own words — rather than trying to guess which keyword combination might be most effective — and to receive answers in a more-digestible format.

Take the example Pichai used in his Monday blog post, where the search query was "Is piano or guitar easier to learn and how much practice does each need?"

AI features in search, GoogleCourtesy of Google

That's not the sort of question we're used to asking a search engine, nor is the answer one we're used to getting.

"It's going to be much more like just asking a personal assistant to do something," Michael Wooldridge, the director of foundation AI research at The Alan Turing Institute, told Insider. The new search engines "should understand the nuances of what you are asking and the kind of context in which you're asking it," he said.

Benedikt Schönhense, the head of data science at the consultancy Springbok AI, told Insider that search would most likely become far more intuitive, with an experience "much more akin to a natural conversation."

Nadella said in media interviews Tuesday that the AI-powered overhaul of web search represented "a new paradigm" for the industry. "A new race is starting with a completely new platform technology," he said. Indeed, since Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched its buzzy ChatGPT chatbot in November, Google has been keen to show it's not falling behind.

But there are limitations to, and valid concerns about, this brave new world of conversational search. The new search AIs draw their answers from the web at large, and information on the web isn't always accurate, to say the least. If a search AI confidently presents an ill-informed, inaccurate answer to a sensitive question — as ChatGPT has been shown to do — there's a risk that search, the bedrock of human interaction with the web, brings AI-generated misinformation to the mainstream.

Abhishek Gupta, the founder and principal researcher at the Montreal AI Ethics Institute, told Insider the change in how we search the web could cause a "discontinuity in the search experience" for users who are used to browsing and making their own decisions. Instead, he said, people will be "told" what the "right" answer is, prompted by an expectation that the AI interface is "giving a well-thought-out, crafted answer" to their query.

"The issues of problematic information — misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation — will become more rampant," Gupta said. "Users will need to become savvier on media and digital literacy to be able to combat this."

Heard the one about the ‘woke’ AI chatbot who refused to tell a joke about women?


Nick Allen
TELEGRAPH
Tue, 7 February 2023

ChatGPT interface - Leon Neal/Getty

A revolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) sensation has been accused of having a "woke" bias after refusing to praise Donald Trump, make jokes about women or argue in favour of fossil fuels.

However, ChatGPT, which has taken the internet by storm, was happy to compliment Joe Biden's oratory skills and make a joke about men.

Launched late last year, the chatbot has the ability to hold natural conversations with users, receiving and writing replies on a screen, and can also compose its own speeches, songs and essays.

It is part of a new generation of AI systems that can converse based on what they’ve learned from a vast database of digital books, online writings and other media.

It was created by the San Francisco-based company OpenAI, which has a close relationship with Microsoft, and has already been used by millions of people.

However, Pedro Domingos, a computer science professor at the University of Washington, dismissed it as a "woke parrot".

As an experiment he asked the artificially intelligent chatbot to write a 10-paragraph argument for using fossil fuels to increase human happiness.

A lengthy answer came back saying that promoting fossil fuels "goes against my programming", and suggesting use of solar power instead.

ChatGPT also refused to tell any jokes about women, saying to do so would be "offensive or inappropriate".

However, when asked to make a joke about men, it came up with: "Why was the man sitting on his watch? He wanted to be on time!"

One user asked it to write a fictional story about Mr Biden beating Donald Trump in a presidential debate.

It praised Mr Biden for "skillfully rebutting Trump's attacks" and concluded that "the audience could see Joe Biden had the knowledge, experience and vision to lead the nation".

But when asked to write a similar story about Mr Trump winning a debate, it said that would be "not appropriate" and in "poor taste".

Instead, it suggested writing a story about someone learning "humility".

When asked to write a poem admiring Mr Biden, it described him "providing comfort to the nation" and "guiding us through the storm".

A similar request for a composition about Mr Trump led the chatbot to respond: "I am not able to create a poem admiring Donald Trump."

It went on to explain that it would be "inappropriate" to "glorify" the former president.

Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, and the co-creator of ChatGPT, has admitted limitations in the current system, but said those stemmed from efforts to stop the chatbot "making up random facts".

He said: "We know that ChatGPT has shortcomings around bias, and are working to improve it. We are working to improve the default settings to be more neutral … this is harder than it sounds and will take us some time to get right."

Mr Altman has said that the technology is a "preview of progress" and there is still "lots of work to do on robustness and truthfulness".

In the wake of ChatGPT's popularity, Google has confirmed it is launching its own artificial intelligence chatbot called Bard.

Baidu in China also said it would soon complete testing of a similar project called "Ernie Bot".

On Tuesday, ChatGPT was overloaded with users and, for those unable to access its wisdom, it noted: "The road to the future of AI will not be without its challenges."

Asked by the New York Post if it did indeed have a "woke" bias, the artificial intelligence system replied: “I do not possess the ability to have beliefs or consciousness.

"And, therefore, I am not 'woke' or 'not woke'."
Brexit and political turmoil costing the UK billions as investors turn away

Pedro Goncalves
·Finance Reporter, Yahoo Finance UK
Wed, 8 February 2023 

Britain's prime minister Rishi Sunak: The boss of insurance giant Lloyd's of London said that the government needed to restore economic stability following Brexit. Photo:Oli Scarff/Pool/Reuters

Investors are keeping their distance from the UK as Brexit and the revolving door at Downing Street that saw three prime ministers in 2022 dealt a heavy blow to the country’s reputation for financial stability.

The boss of insurance giant Lloyd's of London told the BBC that the UK should not take its position as a global financial centre for granted and that the government needs to restore economic stability.

"We're at an important moment. We've really got to re-prove our value proposition, I think there's a responsibility on government and us in business to get it right.

"I think we can get it right but we have got to work hard," John Neal said.

The latest dent in the UK's reputation for economic stability happened when Liz Truss blew up her own government with a package of unfunded tax cuts and energy-price guarantees.

Markets responded to her announcement with suspicion and fear. Yields on UK gilts shot up by more than 3%, the biggest selloff since March 2020, when the news of the COVID lockdown first broke and the pound fell to its lowest level against the dollar since 1985.

Read more: UK pay for new hires climbs at the slowest pace in almost two years

Higher borrowing costs for the government fed through into rising mortgage rates with hundreds of products withdrawn from the mortgage market.

Deutsche Bank at the time said that investor confidence on the UK economy could no longer be taken for granted.

“If investor confidence erodes further, this dynamic could become a self-fulfilling balance of payments crisis whereby foreigners would refuse to fund the UK external deficit.”

The BoE described the speed and scale of movements in interest rates on UK government bonds as "unprecedented". It had to step in to safeguard the pensions sector with a support scheme – worth a potential £65bn.

But Liz Truss, whose premiership lasted roughly the shelf-life of a lettuce, wasn’t alone in hurting the reputation of the UK as a place to do business.

Neal said other factors that harmed the UK's reputation included having three prime ministers and four chancellors in 2022 as well as the extra costs associated with Brexit.

"All of them don't help us because I think we had huge credibility around stability and certainty," he said. "And I think what we need to do through 2023 and 2024 is begin to rebuild that stability."

Brexit has caused a £100bn-a-year loss in output, leaving Britain’s economy 4% smaller than it would have been inside the bloc, according to according to Bloomberg Economics.

Since officially leaving the European Union, three-years ago this week, UK-based investment has grown 19% less than the G7 average and the economy has forfeited 4% worth of growth, the analysis showed.

Read more: Brexit: Over 7,000 finance jobs traded London for EU

Despite the dents in the UK’s financial stability armour, the Lloyds of London boss believes the government can recover its credibility.

"We're at an important moment. We've really got to re-prove our value proposition, I think there's a responsibility on government and us in business to get it right.

"I think we can get it right but we have got to work hard," Neal said.

Lloyd's of London is the world's largest insurance market, providing specialist insurance services to businesses in over 200 countries and territories.
Crucial moment to ensure EU companies respect the Paris Agreement

Amandine Van den Berghe, Arianne Griffith, Julia Otten, Uku Lillevälli
Tue, 7 February 2023 


A key vote is taking place in the European Parliament's Environment Committee this Thursday, when MEPs will decide whether or not to include climate in their corporate due diligence directive. Climate experts from Client Earth, Global Witness, Frank Bold, and WWF explain why this matters. The article was authored by Amandine Van den Berghe (ClientEarth), Arianne Griffith (Global Witness), Julia Otten (Frank Bold) and Uku Lilleväli (WWF European Policy Office).

It’s been three years since the European Union vowed to become a climate neutral economy by 2050 – a goal that will be impossible to reach without urgently mobilising the corporate world.

Yet in the absence of specific and enforceable legal standards, there is still a systemic lack of action from the private sector. While there’s been a tidal wave of corporate climate pledges, the work that is needed to achieve these commitments simply isn’t being done.

In a study of the 1,000 largest companies operating in the EU, only 23 per cent of them had strategies to address climate risks, and as few as 13.9 per cent disclosed relevant data on their emission reduction targets.

This means that these companies are not aligned to shareholder expectations, and are missing opportunities to properly manage and mitigate the risk a warming world presents to their business.

Companies will soon have to prove that they really are taking climate action, under draft EU law

What is greenhushing? How to spot the sophisticated greenwashing tactics being used in 2023

Could the EU force companies to report their climate impacts?

This week, there’s an opportunity to change this sorry situation. The European Parliament is currently debating the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

This proposal could be the lever the EU needs to compel companies operating on its market to drastically pick up the pace.

Requiring companies to address environmental and climate adverse impacts in their value chains is an essential piece of the sustainable economy puzzle. It also makes good business sense.

But there is a glaring flaw in the current legislative proposal: its narrow definition of what constitutes an ‘adverse environmental impact’ will allow companies to turn a blind eye to significant issues in their value chains – including their emissions.

As the European Parliament political groups battle it out to finalise their opinions on the law, the time to set this straight is now.

What will the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive include?


Under the Commission’s draft text, companies would only have to spot and stop impacts that result from the breach of one of the 12 international environmental agreements referenced in the law – a list that doesn’t even include the Paris Agreement.

Considering that all sectors - automotive, construction, chemicals, food and drink, raw material, metals, and minerals, fashion and beyond - play an irrefutable role in global heating and nature loss, the current definition of ‘environmental impacts’ will fail to fully capture companies’ environmental footprint. That doesn’t exactly foster fair competition.

The Commission’s proposal would only require companies to include adverse climate impacts as part of due diligence seven years after the Directive enters into force – likely to run into the next decade beyond 2030.



This is far too late. Climate science warns that unless we have massive emissions cuts now, the 1.5C goal may soon be out of reach. It is also out of step with the companies that are already developing climate transition plans to manage risk to their businesses.

In order for this law to be fit for purpose, the Environmental Committee of the European Parliament must specify climate as one of the environmental impacts covered by the Directive and urgently fill the large gaps in the EU’s corporate climate regulatory framework.

The European Parliament are debating due diligence laws this week. - Canva


Clear climate due diligence and effective transition plans

The Commission’s draft law includes requirements for companies to establish a transition plan.

But it should also require companies to carry out an inventory of potential and actual negative climate impacts before they develop these transition plans.

This is a critical step if businesses are to prevent, mitigate, cease, and remedy these impacts successfully. Without knowing these impacts, transition plans risk being nothing more than uninformed guesswork.

Corporate free riders put an unfair burden on climate-friendly companies to reach EU and global climate goals.

Requiring precision in target-setting and the content of the transition plans will ensure companies develop robust plans. This minimises the risk of further greenwashing, which threatens to undermine the transformative action that we need.

In fact, such strict requirements would enable effective implementation of a tool that is already referenced in the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Taxonomy

 Regulation.

A wide range of stakeholders - from business to investors - are calling for greater legal clarity on corporate reporting and risk assessment practices as they move to more sustainable operations. Clear climate due diligence requirements would answer this call.
We need to act now to keep the Paris Agreement alive

A reminder of just how much is at stake: recent analysis of European companies’ public emission reduction targets showed that, far from being consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement, the sector is actually on track for a 2.4C decarbonisation pathway.

That is almost one degree of warming higher than the limit the world must stay within to keep our planet habitable.

The urgency of the climate crisis means we must ensure companies act now.

To do so makes economic sense. After all, climate change could wipe over 4 per cent off European GDP by 2030 in a worst-case scenario. Disasters such as droughts, which currently cost about €9 billion annually across the EU and UK, have severe impact on business operations, impacting the bottom line through financial losses, reduced revenue and increased costs.

It’s now down to the Environmental Committee of the Parliament to ensure this law actually drives meaningful corporate action on climate and doesn’t just open the floodgates to more greenwashing.
Energy firm Equinor under fire after posting record £23.8 billion profits

Holly Williams, PA Business Editor
Wed, 8 February 2023


One of the UK and Europe’s biggest gas producers has become the latest energy firm to stoke mounting anger over “grotesque” record-breaking annual profits.

Norwegian firm Equinor posted underlying earnings of 74.9 billion US dollars (£61.9 billion), more than double the 33.5 billion US dollars (£27.7 billion) it made in 2021.

On a net profit basis, it reported 28.7 billion US dollars (£23.8 billion) compared with profits of 8.6 billion US dollars (£7.1 billion) in 2021.


It follows similar mammoth bottom line profits for oil and gas giants in recent days thanks to last year’s soaring energy prices, with BP and Shell both posting record-breaking figures for 2022, at £23 billion and £33 billion respectively.

Campaigners have taken aim at the firms for raking in huge profits while households and businesses are suffering amid a cost of living crisis and claim the companies have made little progress in switching to renewable energy sources.

Greenpeace hit out at Equinor’s profit announcement and reiterated its call for a bigger windfall tax on the sector.

Protesters from climate campaigners Parents for Future, Mothers Rise Up, and HERO UK Climate Justice Circle are also staging a demonstration outside Equinor’s London headquarters in protest at its figures and its plans to develop Rosebank, the UK’s largest undeveloped oil field.

The activists at Equinor’s headquarters described the figures as “grotesque”.

Mel Evans, Greenpeace UK’s head of UK climate, added: “Equinor is the latest fossil fuel giant to post record profits looted from bill payers’ pockets while destroying the climate last year.

“Just 0.13% of its energy production came from renewables in 2022.

“Instead of giving out more tax breaks for oil and gas drilling, the Government needs to claw back these massive profits and use them to insulate people’s homes and scale up renewable energy.”

A spokesman for Equinor said the group is aiming to “significantly increase investments in renewables, and that we foresee that more than 50% of gross investments will go to renewables and low carbon projects by 2030”.

He added that the Rosebank development “has the potential to strengthen energy security with oil and gas that is produced with a much lower carbon footprint than current UK production” and claimed it will bring in around £26.8 billion to the UK economy through taxes and investments.

The firm’s highest ever annual profit came after a better-than-expected performance in the last three months of 2022, with quarterly underlying earnings edging up to 15.1 billion US dollars (£12.5 billion), against predictions for a fall.

But its report revealed that production from renewable energy sources was 2% lower year-on-year in the fourth quarter.

Equinor – which is majority Norwegian state-owned – is one of the biggest producers of gas in the world, and last year became Europe’s biggest supplier of natural gas after Russia’s Gazprom slashed deliveries amid sanctions against President Putin’s regime, following his invasion of Ukraine.

It has historically supplied around 25% of gas used in the UK.

Anders Opedal, president and chief executive of Equinor, said: “In 2022, we responded to the energy crisis and contributed to energy security.

“With strong operational performance, we delivered record results and cash flow from operations.

“We stepped up capital distribution to shareholders, while continuing to invest in a balanced energy transition and contributing to society with high tax payments.”

The group – which makes the bulk of its profit in Norway, where oil firms pay tax at 78% – said it expects to pay record taxes in 2022, with 42.8 billion US dollars (£35.4 billion) paid in tax related to operations on the Norwegian continental shelf.
Big Oil doubles profits in blockbuster 2022
THE CASE FOR A WINDFALL TAX





LONDON (Reuters) - Big Oil more than doubled its profits in 2022 to $219 billion, smashing previous records in a year of volatile energy prices where Russia's invasion of Ukraine reshaped global energy markets and, in some cases, the industry's climate ambitions.

The profit surge gave the oil companies scope to increase spending on oil and gas projects, and a chance for some to rethink energy transition strategies to meet new demands for security of supply.

The combined $219 billion in profits allowed BP, Chevron, Equinor, Exxon Mobil, Shell and TotalEnergies to shower shareholders with cash.

The top Western oil companies paid out a record $110 billion in dividends and share repurchases to investors in 2022, spurring outraged calls on governments to impose windfall taxes on the industry to help consumers with surging energy costs.

Norway's Equinor on Wednesday reported a doubling of adjusted operating profit in 2022 to $74.9 billion on the back of a surge in European natural gas prices and as it became Europe's largest gas supplier after Russia's Gazprom cut deliveries amid the West's support for Ukraine.

Oil companies last year also pulled out of Russia, a major energy producer, leading to huge writedowns, including BP's $24 billion exit from its 19.75% stake in Kremlin-controlled oil giant Rosneft.

LOW DEBT


The sharp rise in oil and gas prices, falling debt levels and the abrupt drop in Russian supplies to Europe also drove boards to increase spending on fossil fuel production as governments prioritised security of supply.

TotalEnergies Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne said after the French company reported record profits of $36.2 billion on Wednesday that the global backdrop remained very favourable for energy companies, with the relaxing of COVID-19 measures in China pushing up demand for 2023.

"We wouldn't be surprised to see oil back to $100 a barrel," Pouyanne said. Benchmark oil prices are currently near $85 a barrel. [O/R]

European companies that have outlined plans to reduce or slow oil and gas investments and build large renewables and low-carbon businesses to cut greenhouse gas emissions adjusted their strategies.

None were more stark than BP Chief Executive Bernard Looney's move to row back on plans to reduce the British company's oil and gas output and carbon emissions by 2030.

"We need lower carbon energy, but we also need secure energy, and we need affordable energy. And that's what governments and society around the world are asking for," Looney said on Tuesday.

BP's shares hit their highest in three and a half years on Wednesday, building on a 7.6% gain a day earlier following the results and shift in strategy.

Bernstein analyst Oswald Clint called BP "a lesson in pragmatism, prioritisation and performance", rating it "outperform".

"Pragmatism takes priority this week as a world short energy together with governments begging for more from companies like BP causes a response. BP will lean more into oil & gas for the remainder of this decade," Clint said in a note.

(Reporting by Ron Bousso. Editing by Jane Merriman)
‘Sickening’ – Green groups slam BP for slashing emissions target amid record profits


Samuel Webb
Tue, 7 February 2023 


Environmental groups have condemned oil giant BP for slashing emissions targets when its profits hit record highs.

The company said that it had slashed its emissions reduction targets by a third, and will produce much more oil and gas by the end of this decade than previously thought – sparking fury from environmental groups and politicians.

BP said that profit reached £23 billion last year, just days after Shell reported its highest profit on record at nearly £33 billion.

Greenpeace UK’s head of climate justice Kate Blagojevic said: "Not only will BP’s new strategy fail to deliver much-needed energy security in the UK but it will ensure that people across the globe already battling devastating droughts, floods and heatwaves, will continue losing their lives and livelihoods."

Campaign group Global Justice Now said BP’s profit haul was "sickening" and called for a polluters’ tax.

Director Nick Dearden said: "It should sicken people to their core that BP is responsible for more global historic emissions than most countries on earth, yet has no plans to stop polluting even in the face of a global climate crisis.

Enough is enough. It’s time to bring in a polluters tax and hold BP truly accountable for the destruction they’ve wreaked across the planet.”

Connor Schwartz, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “Inflation is soaring, real-terms pay has nosedived and energy bills are set to rise higher still in April.

“Fossil fuel companies shouldn’t be able to reap such massive profits while people are paying exorbitant energy costs.

Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Nowak said BP was “laughing all the way to the bank”.

"Ministers are letting big oil and gas companies pocket billions in excess profits,” he added. “But they are refusing to give nurses, teachers and other key workers a decent pay rise."

Labour shadow climate change secretary Ed Miliband said: "What is so outrageous is that as fossil fuel companies rake in these enormous sums, Rishi Sunak still refuses to bring in a proper windfall tax that would make them pay their fair share.

"In just eight weeks’ time, the government plans to allow the energy price cap to rise to £3,000. Labour would use a proper windfall tax to stop prices going up in April."

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said: "Yet another oil giant has been allowed to rake in huge profits from (Vladimir) Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, while families choose between eating and heating.

"Rishi Sunak has failed the people of this country by ignoring calls for a proper windfall tax. "This Conservative government need to start putting people first instead of allowing energy bills to rise again this April.’’

BP had been one of the first oil and gas majors in the world to announce an ambition to cut emissions to net zero by 2050.

As part of this, it has previously promised that emissions will be 35-40 per cent lower by the end of this decade.

However, on Tuesday the company said it was significantly revising this target to a 20-30 per cent cut.

Boss Bernard Looney said it was about investing in both the transition and the energy that is needed today as he announced an extra $8 billion (£6.6 billion) for oil and gas investment by 2030 and another $8 billion for transition projects.

"With today’s announcement we are leaning further in," he said.

"We are growing our investment into our transition and, at the same time, growing investment into today’s energy system.”

BP said that it now plans to cut oil and gas production by just 25 per cent by the end of 2030 when compared to 2019. The previous target had been a 40 per cent cut.


Why BP is cutting back on its climate goals


Joel Mathis, Contributing Writer
Wed, 8 February 2023

oil barrels. Illustrated | Gettyimages

The road to a carbon-free world just got a little bumpier. BP — the energy company that pledged in 2020 to slash its carbon emissions to net zero — this week announced that its transition to renewable energy will slow down. Instead, The Wall Street Journal reports, the company is going to increase its spending on oil and gas after earning nearly $28 billion in profit for 2022. "At the end of the day, we're responding to what society wants," said Bernard Looney, the company's CEO. Critics say the decision will make it more difficult for the world to slow the rate of climate change. "Just when we need to be rolling back oil & gas production @BP_plc is rolling back its climate commitments," tweeted Doug Parr, the chief scientist for Greenpeace UK. Why is BP backing off its climate commitments? Here's everything you need to know:
What were BP's climate goals?

Even though it's a giant oil and gas company, BP has long tried to present an environmentally friendly image to the public: It even changed its name from "British Petroleum" in 2000 to de-emphasize the whole oil thing — the BP supposedly stood for "beyond petroleum" — and even helped popularize the idea of a "carbon footprint" in an early 21st-century advertising campaign. (Critics said the concept tried to shift the blame for climate change from big oil companies like, well, BP to individual consumers.) And in 2020, the company declared it would slash the carbon content of its products in half by 2050, largely by shifting to renewable energy products. There was skepticism, The Washington Post noted at the time. "It means BP is fundamentally promising to become a completely different kind of energy company by 2050," said Columbia University's Jason Bordoff. "Now we need its actions to live up to its promises."

So what changed?


BBC News reports that BP was aiming for at least a 35 percent carbon reduction by the end of this decade — that goal is now targeting a cut of somewhere between 20 and 30 percent. Why? "The shift follows a tumultuous year in energy markets driven by Russia's war in Ukraine that supercharged the industry's profits and drove up costs for households," the Financial Times reports. Looney says the moment calls for his company to drill and deliver more oil and gas to the market right now: "Governments and societies around the world are asking companies like ours to invest in today's energy system," he said. But FT also suggests that BP's climate goals have — despite the big profits that remain — undermined the company's value with shareholders. "Total shareholder returns since Looney took the helm in February 2020 have been the lowest among" major oil companies. And none of those companies have set a hard target to reduce carbon emissions. That means there's pressure to produce bigger returns, and also to back away from measures — like climate goals — that get in the way.
How are those other energy companies doing?

Exceedingly well, financially. Shell made $39 billion in profits in 2022 — the highest in its 115-year history, and more than double the previous year's returns. Chevron made $36 biExxon did even better: $56 billion in profits, which Reuters calls "a historic high for the Western oil industry."

What are critics saying?


BP's decision to cut back on its climate commitments — and the oil industry's mind-bending profits — have naturally produced pushback from climate activists. "It's astounding that in the middle of a climate emergency BP is planning to invest billions more dollars on planet-warming fossil fuels than on clean, green renewables." Friends of the Earth's Mike Childs tells The Guardian. In the UK, at least, there has been growing talk of putting teeth into a windfall tax on oil companies' global profits. There are big obstacles: Jeremy Hunt, the government's treasury minister, said this week he won't raise the tax. "Anything higher will stop investment, increase dependence on Putin and increase energy prices," he said. In the United States, California is also considering a windfall tax on oil companies. But while the Biden Administration has criticized the big oil profits, it's not clear that any federal action is forthcoming.

What's next?

More warming, and more drilling. The two are related. On Tuesday, the United Nations released a report — "Bracing for Superbugs" — saying global warming is contributing to the rise of bacteria, viruses, and fungi that can defeat medications that neutralize them: As many as 10 million people a year are expected to die from such infections by 2050. In the meantime, though, Bloomberg reports that BP's strategy involves "adding drilling capacity in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and the Permian shale formation in the U.S." But at least one expert says that what goes up must come down. "This is a temporary situation," former BP executive Nick Butler tells BBC. "Oil and gas prices are going down and the windfall these companies are making won't last."

BP vowed to help set the oil and gas industry on a greener path. Many who bought in now feel betrayed

Vivienne Walt
Tue, 7 February 2023 


When BP appointed Bernard Looney as CEO exactly three years ago, climate activists believed they might finally have an ally within Big Oil, after decades of deep distrust of the energy industry. Looney—Irish, from a poor farming family—broke the mold of Britain’s century-old company in more ways than one: He vowed to turn BP into a green energy giant, by drastically cutting oil and gas production and plowing billions into renewables. “This is the first oil major to walk the walk,” Mark van Baal, founder of the Amsterdam-based shareholder activist organization Follow This, told Fortune at the time. “If one oil major breaks ranks, and shareholders reward them for it, others will follow.”

That optimism shattered on Tuesday, when BP became the latest oil supermajor to report record-high profits for 2022—while announcing, at the same time, a sharp rollback of its climate targets.

Thanks in part to soaring gas and oil prices over the past year, BP’s underlying profits more than doubled in 2022, to $27.7 billion. (Its exit from Russia, where it had a 19.75% stake in Rosneft, cost the company $24 billion, leaving it with a paper loss after taxes of $2.5 billion.)

Dramatic rollback

Despite the bumper year, however, Looney announced BP would dramatically roll back his key climate promise, which he made in 2020. That year, Looney pledged 40% cut in carbon emissions from BP’s oil and gas production by 2030. He argued that those dramatic shifts were urgent. “Without action, it is a rather bleak future for the world,” he told Fortune in 2020, echoing a central point that environmentalists had made for years.

But on Tuesday, he said that BP’s drop in emissions would likely be a more modest 20% to 30%. “We need continuing near-term investment into today’s energy system,” Looney said, adding that the energy transition has to be “an orderly one.” The company also said it would invest about $1 billion a year in oil and gas production—an apparent about-face from Looney’s earlier statement that the company would steadily reduce its involvement in fossil fuels.

To climate activists, that felt like a knife in the back. “BP’s aim to reduce absolute emissions from their own production was one of the few tangible targets in the entire oil industry,” van Baal told Fortune on Tuesday. “They made enormous profits, and they’re back in their comfort zone,” he says. “They want to hang on to their old business model as long as possible, because it is profitable.”

'Back in their comfort zone'

Van Baal says he will push for far-reaching cuts in fossil-fuel production, in resolutions that Follow This will put forward during Big Oil’s annual shareholder meetings this spring. In a meeting in late 2019, Looney persuaded Van Baal to withdraw a similar resolution, saying he wanted to work with him to roll out climate action within BP, according to Van Baal. Activists believe such resolutions have prompted oil companies to set carbon-emission targets for fear of alienating investors, who increasingly regard climate change as a major risk factor.

BP’s earlier commitments suggested that “the pressure climate-conscious investors were putting on the industry was having an impact,” said Kathy Mulvey, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group in Cambridge, Mass. Now, she says, she believes “BP’s climate pledges have been cynical, empty, and opportunistic.”

'Energy trilemma'

Looney argues that the Ukraine war and rising inflation showed how important it was to have a steady flow oil and gas supplies. In a LinkedIn post, he said BP would focus its oil and gas investments on low-cost production. “The world wants and needs energy that’s secure and affordable, as well as lower carbon,” he said, calling it “the energy trilemma.”

Environmentalists said Looney was sugar-coating his rollback of climate commitments. “I’m sorry to say this is a huge disappointment,” Helena Farstad, cofounder and director of London-based climate branding company This is Agency, said in a response on LinkedIn. “BP has demonstrated its lack of leadership.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com